'I had a slight inkling that things were not quite right. I, too, had felt a slender change in me. It was a feeling. I could neither touch nor see it – so how could it be real? I was out of kilter, out of sync.'

When Kim Hodges' psychologist suggests she has depression, she immediately recoils from the idea. She is a mother, a wife, an academic – a functional human being! But it is the only diagnosis that explains the days she can barely lift her heavy limbs out of bed, the sick feeling that moves its way across her body and brain, the isolation, alcohol use, the colour that evaporated and left her world grey.

What follows is a five-year journey that involves six lengthy hospital stays, multiple trips to the Emergency Department, innumerable engagements with health professionals, and eventually, the ability for Kim to overcome the denial, shame and stigma she feels about mental illness to begin her road to recovery.

Raw, honest and confronting, Girl Over the Edge strips bare the range of human emotions, struggles and treatment options associated with mental illness, and delivers an overall message of hope and positivity.